Qutee – A Blogger’s Alternative to Crowdsourcing

I set up my blog in 2013 after the birth of my first child. One of my main reasons for doing so was that I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences as a parent. Erin was my first child, and like many first time Mums, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and relied upon other people’s advice, recommendations and suggestions to help me make my decisions. When I created Real Mum Reviews, I wanted to share the things I learnt as a Mum and hopefully help some other people along the way!

As you will know, I also LOVE a good debate. I regularly blog about current affairs and issues that have been making the headlines and love to see the wide range of opinions and viewpoints from my readers. I recently shared my views on the Supreme Court’s ruling to prevent parents taking their children on holiday during term time. It appeared that I was not alone in my view point, and that a LOT of parents were disappointed by the news. Some however, were more sympathetic of the decision, and I really enjoyed listening to counter arguments and alternative viewpoints on the issue.

A now (semi) established Parenting Blogger, I always try and cover issues that parents will want to read about. The challenge can be deciding what topics to cover and collating opinions on the subject. Many bloggers use the ‘crowdsourcing’ approach, sharing their questions in Social Media groups and asking other bloggers to provide links, opinions and advice. I have used this approach reguarly, however, keeping up with my Facebook feed and drawing out these notifications from the mass of alerts I receive every day can be really challenging!

Qutee – The Alternative to Crowdsourcing

I was recently asked to check out a new data gathering website, Qutee – an online portal that allows registered users to pose any question of their choice, and then gather responses and opinions from other registered users. It is completely free of charge to use, and the data and viewpoints you collate can be used to discover the consensus on an issue, as well as start a discussion and debate. Users could be fellow bloggers or simply other registered users sharing their opinions.

If you have a particular interest, you can sign up to individual Hubs – getting involved with all the Qutee questions that are posed, viewing new questions as they come through, and even following other users. There is even a hub for Game of Thrones and The Premier League should you fancy something a little out of your normal blogging remit!

I recently joined the Parenting101 Hub on Qutee, a hub for parents and parenting bloggers. Lets face it, us parenting bloggers have a lot of insight into products and services that would be useful to the average parent, and in the Parenting101 Qutee Hub, parents can tap into our knowledge and expertise! They can pose their questions and problems such as “Teething tools of the trade” and “Potty training tips” and we can share our favourite posts, our viewpoints and recommendations. By seeing the topics that are being posted by parents, bloggers will be able to learn more about the issues that people are talking about most – perfect for a bit of blogging inspiration! 🙂 Some current discussions in the Parenting101 hub include ‘The Best Age Gap between children’, ‘Bedtime Routines’ and ‘Screen addiction’.

To test out the Qutee hub – I recently created a Qutee question to collate opinions on a new School Streets campaign being set up by my local authority and linked to it within my blog post. Qutee was a useful tool to collate comments and opinions from affected parents, and was in a format I could easily share with my local council. I have received 7 responses so far – a small number perhaps, but all of them had a strong and interesting viewpoint on the issue posed. I can also visually see at a glance whether the general viewpoint is positive or negative towards the initiative.

The Qutee site is still in Beta phase at the moment, but I think this site has the potential to be a really beneficial blogger tool. If a large number of parenting bloggers register with Qutee, this could easily become a go to place to share your crowdsourcing posts, ask opinions on blog ideas, content, recommendations, and product ideas. Links could also be included to any relevant blog articles you may have, potentially increasing page views, reaching a new audience and improving domain authority – creating a back link to your site from a trusted source. By sharing your Qutee questions within your blog posts, you can help direct parents towards the Qutee network, helping gain insights not only from fellow bloggers, but also other parents – your target audience too!

I for one will be keeping a close eye on the Qutee Parenting 101 Hub over coming weeks. If you have your own Parenting or Blog based question, why not use Qutee to pose it to other users? The results you get may surprise you!

*This post is in collaboration with Qutee, however as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own*